Police scanners?

[bgadow]

A lot of the migration came after 9/11 when there was all that homeland security money floating around. It didn't have to do so much with eavesdropping, from what I've seen, as it did with getting away from the pitfalls of the older systems. Skip is a problem with the lower frequencies (you could often pick up broadcasts from all over the country, loud and clear, which can be a real issue in an emergency situation). The new systems give more frequencies and lots of flexability. For instance, with the old system in our county there were 2 frequencies for the fire companies. Most all communications were on 33.7 but if things got real crowded (maybe there were 2 or 3 calls at once) they would move the biggest call over to 33.44. Get a bad storm coming through and things could really get overloaded. With the trunking system they can move different calls to a larger number of different channels. They also worked in better coordination with neighboring counties and other agencies. I think they can now work it so the state police can communicate directly with the firemen but I'm not 100% sure of that. One issue with these systems is they use planned obsolescence. I guess the old Motorola system they had must have been from the 70s at the newest; the early '00s Motorola system they installed cost millions but they are now told it will no longer be supported (just like an old version of Windows) so the county is staring at having to buy a new system, just when they have no money to do it.

Among the last things I heard on the VHF bands were the local power company and school busses. Oh, and some older baby monitors!

[OvenMaster]

I've got a RatShack PRO-2048 that still sees plenty of local action. The only trunked system in my area is six channels' worth of the MA State Police, and the only digital-only service that I care about is the local gas and electric utility (which is a shame because whenever bad weather struck, they were great to listen to). I have about 60 channels that are in constant use. The antenna is a home-brew 3-band (155, 460, 860) that's ugly as sin but it works fine, hung from a hook in my second-floor room.

[Gunslinger]

I work for the sheriff's office. I have a "moon" radio in the vehicle. I have so many different channels I don't know what they all do. I have fire, EMS, crime watch, inter city, inter-county,forestry, and state. If there is a event, they tell us which channel to switch to. Everything is digital. They all have identifiers on them so the dispatchers know who is keying up. If someone was to break into a vehicle and steal a radio, the dispatchers can disable it in a heartbeat. My handheld does the same thing as the vehicle.